In a truly surprising turn of events, Hollywood Reporter has posted a story that Robert Kirkman, the creator of incredibly successful The Walking Dead series, is now being sued by Tony Moore, the original illustrator of the series up to issue #6 and continued to provide the cover art up until issue #24.
In the new lawsuit, Moore claims that Kirkman and his legal team agreed to compensate him with 60 percent of “Comic Publishing Net Proceeds” from The Walking Dead and Brit, a project they had collaborated on, and 50 percent of the “Motion Picture Net Proceeds” for Battle Pope. Moore is claiming that he hasn’t earned nearly as much as he’s owed and that he hasn’t received any profit statement from Kirkman or his legal team.
The legal filing goes on to state:
“Each of these works was prepared by [Moore] and Kirkman with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or independent parts of a unitary whole,”
“[Moore] and Kirkman were thus joint authors and co-owners of the copyrights in these works.”
While Kirkman’s legal team has flat out denied that Tony Moore is owed anything more than he’s received, there’s no question that this is a serious charge against his former collaborator and childhood friend.
Robert Kirkman’s lawyer has stated that the lawsuit is “totally frivolous,” and that “Mr. Moore is owed no money at all. And Mr. Moore’s contract has an attorneys’ fees clause in it so we will be going after him to collect attorneys’ fees. We are taking this matter very seriously.”
Comments